If you’re in New York this weekend, get off the couch. The Public Theater just announced The People’s Filibuster, a free eight-hour artistic demonstration best experienced IRL. In solidarity with Minnesota and communities nationwide protesting state-sanctioned violence and abuses of power, some of Broadway’s most vital voices are gathering Saturday, January 31, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on the steps at 425 Lafayette Street. This is the kind of moment live art exists for.
The lineup is stacked. Lin-Manuel Miranda headlines alongside parents Luis A. Miranda Jr. and Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda, joined by Constance Wu, John Leguizamo, Micaela Diamond, F. Murray Abraham, Laura Benanti, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Annaleigh Ashford, and many more. These performers will present foundational American texts and songs as what the theater calls “a protest for humanity.”
It wants better content.
The Public Theater Continues Its Legacy of Civic Action
This is The Public doing what The Public does best. The institution that gave us Hair, Hamilton, and free Shakespeare in Central Park has never separated art from democracy. Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and theater leadership describe the event as “a collective interruption that invites reflection, accountability, and recommitment to the values we claim as a nation.”
What to expect? Participating artists, elected officials, and changemakers will offer, according to The Public, “seminal, primary source texts from the founding ofournation andwritingsand songs that articulate our shared ideals and democratic aspirations, not as history alone, but as a living call to action.”
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